First, who is Katalin Karikó? She is the primary scientist who showed how mRNA can be synthesized to create a vaccine. Why is that important? This technology enabled the COVID19 vaccines, which recently carried the world out of a pandemic. So Karikó’s impact and legacy are tremendous. What’s more is that she has a meaningful, inspiring life story that overcame the odds both in her native Hungary and in the halls of academe in America’s…
The pandemic era provided the world many types of stories that have not been seen in generations, at least since the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Healthcare workers and governmental leaders had the most stress refracted their way. Jahangir, a colleague and trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt Medical Center and chair of the board of health in Metro Nashville, served in both roles. What was naively thought to last perhaps only weeks or even a few…
In anthropology, an ethnography is an account of the culture as told by the people in that culture. As such, it’s basically a fancy word for a series of interviews within a group of people linked together. In this work, Mendenhall, a medical anthropologist working at Georgetown University, offers us an ethnography of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in rural America. She does so in a personal account while she visits her hometown…
Most Americans, heeding the news in 2020-2021 during the coronavirus pandemic, have some bits and pieces about how the “war” against the coronavirus was waged. Very few (yet) have a comprehensive view. Enter Borrell’s The First Shots. In it, he aims to provide a first-draft of a history describing the vaccine’s development. Resulting is an engaging and educational narrative that will inform generations to come. With many actors, Borrell tellingly provides “A Cast of Characters”…
I just got off a helpful call with Vanderbilt Medical Center (VUMC) leadership about COVID and the holidays. From a public-health perspective, I feel that I need to pass along the notes that I took. The presenter was Gordon Bernard. He is an Executive Vice President at VUMC and is respected worldwide both as a researcher and as a clinician. He has worked for over forty years as a Critical Care pulmonologist. This information is…